Last Friday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu submitted his latest arguments to prevent federal Judge Susie Morgan from executing the NOPD consent decree. After previously lauding the consent decree, the mayor now characterizes it as an unnecessary expense that competes with the pending consent decree at Orleans Parish Prison. This is a short-sighted position, and one offered in bad faith.

Despite the fact that budgetary decisions in our city frequently ignore the interconnectedness of our criminal justice system, the police and the jail are two of its interlocking parts. Stalling on the reforms to NOPD means that more New Orleanians will be subject to unjustified use of force, unwarranted searches, arrests without probable cause and rampant racial profiling. The end result of these well-documented practices, besides the death of unarmed people like Wendell Allen and decreased public safety for all, is over-incarceration.

When the NOPD wrongfully arrests a person, that person may await trial in Orleans Parish Prison at the expense of taxpayers. Since our elected officials have stalled in negotiations to revise the jail's per-diem funding structure, each additional occupant of OPP means more money that must be allocated to the sheriff.

The mayor's position is ultimately a request for residents to tolerate the same practices of over-arrest and over-incarceration that ensured that 61 percent of 2013's general fund dollars were spent on a public safety budget that can't keep us safe. The mayor and the sheriff have had ample opportunity to show leadership in ending OPP's criminogenic practices since the Department of Justice first published its report on appalling conditions inside the jail in 2009; instead, they've repeatedly denied responsibility.

What New Orleanians need from our criminal justice system is less political posturing and more justice. Neither the fingerpointing nor the zero-sum narrative of dueling consent decrees should distract us from the common purpose of reducing crime in our community. Ultimately, public safety is served by police that operate with integrity and a smaller, safer, more humane jail. New Orleans needs both.